Pennsylvania Democrats ramp up effort to derail GOP election subpoenas
Deb Erdley, Tribune-Review, Greensburg, Pa.
5 min read
Sep. 24—Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Thursday stepped into the legal fray over the a Republican-controlled Senate committee's attempt to subpoena voter and personal data for nearly 9 million Pennsylvanians.
Republicans say they need the data so they can hire a yet to be named private company to conduct what they call a "forensic investigation" of the 2020 election and 2021 primary.
In a lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court late Thursday, Shapiro seeks to block the Senate Intergovernmental Operation Committee's subpoenas, saying they would "compromise the privacy of every Pennsylvania voter" for an investigation he says was prompted by disproven and false narratives about the 2020 presidential election that Donald Trump lost.
His action came as Senate Democrats, who filed a similar suit last Friday, ramped up efforts to block the Republican plan. On Thursday, they asked the court to prohibit Republicans from hiring a company at taxpayer expense to analyze the data until the court rules upon the subpoenas.
The Republican-controlled Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee issued the subpoenas last week seeking voter registration and participation data for the November 2020 and May 2021 elections. They are demanding the names, dates of birth, addresses and telephone numbers of the state's more than 8 million registered voters as well as data detailing who voted in person or by mail, and the driver's license numbers and the last four digits of all voters' Social Security numbers.
They plan to hand the data over to a yet-to-be-named company for analysis, a move that has Democrats and cyber security experts up in arms.
David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that deals with such issues in a number of states, worked closely with state and local officials in Pennsylvania to update voter registration data. He said the state's registration data, which is considered among the most accurate in the nation, and its use of ballots that create a paper trail for every election leave little to question.
"That was the most secure, verified election in Pennsylvania history," Becker said. "There is zero justification for any kind of review where they are seizing personal data, highly confidential data, that is protected under laws they themselves voted for and putting it at risk."
Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, and Senate Democrats who voted against Senate Committee Chair Cris Dush's proposed subpoenas, said they want to protect "taxpayer dollars from waste and inappropriate expenditures" until the court rules on their legal challenges to the subpoenas.
"Waiting for the courts to review and rule on the subject is warranted due to the sensitive nature of the information being sought," the Democrats maintain.
A spokesman for Senate President pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County, said the Senate subpoenas are within the chamber's legal purview.
"We look forward to this litigation being resolved quickly and reaffirming the Senate's clear legal authority to provide oversight of our election process in Pennsylvania," Jason Thompson said.
The subpoenas, with an Oct. 1 deadline to respond, were issued last week after the Senate Committee voted 7-4 on party lines to move forward with its investigation of the last two elections. It was the culmination of months of demands from Republicans who insist the November 2020 election that ended in an 80,000 vote loss for Trump was rife with irregularities despite official post-election audits that found no suggestions of fraud.
The GOP's proposed third-party analysis of voter records marks the most recent in a series of such attempts to call the results of the 2020 election into question. After a series of challenges was rejected in state courts across the nation last year, Republican-led statehouses began clamoring for action. A recent audit effort in Arizona, another swing state that Trump lost, was called into question recently for lack of oversight and issues regarding the contractor's experience.
Shapiro's complaint argues that Pennsylvania Republicans are basing their subpoenas and calls for an investigation on "false partisan narratives" about the election that have been repeatedly refuted.
In Pennsylvania, many Republican lawmakers are highly critical of the expansion of mail-in balloting, which they approved in 2019 and that subsequently played a major role in the 2020 election. But even some Republicans appear hesitant to warmly embrace the move to subpoena voter records.
Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, did not respond to a request for comment. She has said repeatedly that the move was needed to answer questions voters have raised about election integrity, rather than any dispute about the Biden-Trump race.
Ward publicly characterized the subpoenas as "intrusive and overreaching" but said their proposed probe is necessary to put public questions about the election to rest.
She and others insist the effort is about election integrity, not the outcome of the Trump-Biden contest.
Local Republican House members who responded to a request for comment said they are focused on amending the state's election laws and stressed they are not part of the Senate GOP drive for a an election investigation.
"I am focused on this election and election reform," said freshman House member Abby Major, R-Ford City.
She said she hopes the chamber will craft legislation to take up some of the changes suggested in a series of House State Government Committee meetings last year to address what she calls flaws in the state's election laws.
Rep. Eric Nelson, R-Hempfield, citing a "crisis of confidence" in elections, said he, too, is focused on reforms the State Government Committee is pursuing.
House freshman Leslie Rossi, R-Unity, also sought to distance herself from any Senate action, but said she supports scrapping ballot drop boxes and no-excuse mail in balloting and as well as a campaign for a constitutional amendment to require voter ID.
Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .
